Paul Clouse, Ted Cribari, and Al Hurwitz trolled Lake Del Valle (LDV) on September 4, 2025. Our main target was Smallmouth Bass (SMB). We used a variety of inline spinners (Panther Martins, Mepps, RoxStars, and Joe’s Flies., liberally applying scent to the lures. We had a good start with Ted catching a strong 1.5 pound SMB at 7:30 AM (pictured here holding the fish next to Paul). Al then caught a beautiful 1.83 pound SMB at 8 AM, the fish also putting up a powerful fight. After that, the bite died down. Paul managed to catch two more Smallies (one about a pound), and a decent sized Bluegill. After those five fish, that was it! No more bites. Not sure why the fish developed lockjaw, but such is fishing! We observed multiple large bait balls of Shad on our sonar, and we suspect that the fish had plenty of natural forage to eat (likely preferred over our synthetic bill of fare).

We caught our fish in various sections of the lake, trolling the spinners 16-21 feet below the surface in 25-30 foot water columns, trolling at a speed of 2.0-2.3 mph. The water was up a few feet from a week ago and remained quite clear, with a surface temperature ranging from 75.5-76.5 degrees.

We’ll be back next week, trying different presentations at varying depths to see if we can entice more bites. We again thank the office and dock staff for their great assistance with our outings!

All the best,
Paul Clouse, Lafayette 
Ted Cribari, Los Gatos
Dr. Al Hurwitz, Saratoga